For several years, the CAN protocol has been used as the conventional art in automotive networking, where communications are event controlled. Very large loads can be generated if the transmission of several different messages is to be initiated at the same time. The nondestructive arbitration mechanism of CAN guarantees sequential transmission of all messages according to the priority of their identifiers. For strict realtime systems, there must first be an analysis of the running times and bus loads for the entire system to ensure that all message deadlines can be met (even at peak loads).
If such a system is to be operated as a time-controlled system, as described in unpublished German Patent Application No. 100 00 303.6, for example, a first user will control the timing of the messages in a function as a timer so that it repeatedly transmits over the bus at preselectable intervals a reference message containing time information regarding the time base of the first user, an at least second user forming via its time base its own time information as a function of the time information of the first user, a correction value being determined from the two items of time information, and the second user adjusting its time information and/or its time base as a function of the correction value.
Other synchronization mechanisms are also used in addition to such a master synchronization.
There are thus conventional communications protocols based on time-controlled processing such as TTP/C or Interbus-S. The special feature here is that bus access is scheduled in advance by assigning transmission times. In the case of such an implicit synchronization, a schedule of transmission times to which users are bound is thus predetermined. Thus, in the TTP/C protocol, time information is distributed to individual users by allocation of communications objects to global time according to schedule and appropriate adjustment of local time.
Therefore, collisions are avoided during run time. However, this also avoids a peak load on the communications bus. Thus, the bus is frequently not fully utilized.
These conventional methods are not capable of yielding optimum results in all regards.